Yet Another Value Podcast

Ian Cassel has been picking microcaps for twenty years, and his argument in Stock Picker is that the edge everyone assumes has been arbitraged away is actually coming back. Not the spreadsheet edge. The one that comes from getting on a plane, spending a full day with a CEO instead of an hour, and learning to sense when something is wrong before the numbers say so. His line is that with AI write-ups everywhere, the only place left to get an edge is the conversations that are not recorded, transcribed or scraped, and that puts the game back where it was 30 years ago.
The other half of the book is less comfortable and, for me, the reason it hit. Ian opens with his mother's death and keeps going: living off your own capital, the maturation of an investor running alongside the maturation of a person, what it costs to be the one who gets the credit and the blame. We get into why most microcaps deserve to be rented rather than owned, the junior miner curve and the 36 month rule, how he decides which company visit is worth the flight, scarcity as a reason a stock reprices, why capital allocation barely appears in a 300 page book about picking stocks, and the losing-streak instinct that kills concentrated managers: doubling down instead of diversifying. I push back on whether the microcap universe he describes still exists in the US. Fair warning, I loved this book and it shows.
Buy Stock Picker: https://amzn.to/3UPA936
This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense, and specifically my upcoming webinar with them, The AI Agent Reality Check: What They Mean for Investment Decisions, on September 22nd. It is me, Steve Clapham from Behind the Balance Sheet, and two AI leaders at AlphaSense talking about what AI agents actually do for investors, the upsides, the downsides, and how fast the landscape is moving. It is free to attend: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/the-ai-agent-reality-check-what-they-mean-for-investment-decisions/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_09-22-26_IMP-GENAI_FS_BTBS-YAVP-AI-Agents
Chapters:
(0:00) Introduction
(0:57) Sponsor: AlphaSense
(1:56) Welcome, and why this book landed
(2:32) Why Ian wrote Stock Picker
(4:16) The personal book: his mother, money, and the myth of the stoic investor
(6:23) Where the chapter-opening stories come from
(7:40) John Madden, Vince Lombardi, and knowing one thing cold
(9:37) Is the microcap playbook describing a market that no longer exists?
(13:38) Why most microcaps get rented, not owned
(16:09) The hurricane pro forma, and the comp that needed two Katrinas a year
(16:59) Meeting management without getting pantsed
(20:17) How Ian decides which company visit is worth the flight
(22:43) Do not ask multi-part questions
(23:18) Consulting for the companies he wanted to own
(24:59) Over the wall, and what it cost him
(25:54) The value-added investor, and what his fund does now
(28:41) Scarcity: why the stock nobody can buy reprices
(31:05) Why capital allocation barely appears in the book
(34:07) Great investors evolve or go extinct
(36:25) Fundsmith, momentum, and shooting cannonballs
(37:19) The PM has nowhere to hide
(39:32) Building a brand, and spotting the real ones
(43:12) Buying low, then buying higher
(45:20) Journaling: every trade, what I did and why
(47:37) Imposter syndrome after the big winner
(48:28) The losing streak: diversify, do not double down
(50:59) Wishing time forward, and the secret to compounding
(53:49) Closing
Ian Cassel / MicroCapClub: https://www.microcapclub.com
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

A quarter of the companies on the London Stock Exchange's main board have disappeared in four years. Private equity keeps paying 50 and 60 percent premiums and still walking away with a bargain, because the starting valuations are broken. Swen Lorenz of Undervalued-Shares has spent the last few months writing open letters to UK boards telling them to stop waiting to be rescued and start pulling the levers they already have.
I have been calling the UK an emerging market on this podcast for three years, and my problem with the trade is right there in the setup: if the only way you make money is owning the one company that happens to get taken out, that is not alpha. So we spend the first half on what would actually fix it. Swen puts most of the blame on the big domestic funds, in outflow for a decade, pushing companies toward dividends to fund their own redemptions. I put most of it on boards that own no stock, treat the seat as a club membership, and check the dividend box every year. Then we get concrete on two names. ZIGUP (ZIG), which I own a little of, has a plan that pays seven executives up to 69 million pounds if the share price re-rates, trades under four times EBITDA, and still has not bought back a single share. And Craneware, which turned down a 26 pound approach from Bain last year and now trades at 13.
Swen on how retail investors can unlock the UK market: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/retail-investors-can-unlock-the-uk-market-here-is-how
His earlier write up on UK M&A and activism: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/uk-ma-and-activism-is-the-dam-about-to-break/
This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. I am a customer and I pay for the API myself. Two things I use it for: a huge database of fund letters wired into the API, so the first thing I do when prepping a podcast is pull every recent letter on the name and see the bull and bear case, and audit-linked models where every line in the model links straight back to the source. You can get 15% off their AI connector at the link.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro
(01:23) Sponsor: Fiscal.ai
(02:57) Swen Lorenz, Undervalued-Shares
(04:30) A quarter of the LSE has disappeared
(06:05) If the only exit is a takeout, is that alpha?
(07:52) The levers boards refuse to pull
(10:17) Boards, funds, or shareholders: who is to blame?
(15:23) Active outflows everywhere, so why is the UK uniquely cheap?
(16:57) Culture, and the case for foreign activists
(18:25) Index funds, proxy advisers, and a 95% approval vote
(21:04) The dividend trap: the board or the fund manager?
(25:33) Boards as a club, and the Gamma Communications topping bid
(28:07) You get what you pay for: UK board pay and stock ownership
(30:03) Swen's activist checklist
(32:00) The dam is about to break
(34:12) ZIGUP: the business, and the letter
(36:18) The VCP: 69 million pounds riding on the share price
(40:19) Why I am disappointed: no buybacks, still paying the dividend
(42:14) The real risk is an unsolicited bid at too low a price
(43:51) US roadshows and other non solutions
(48:27) Craneware: from a 26 pound bid to 13
(51:59) SaaSpocalypse fears and the trading update
(53:32) Closing: a golden opportunity, and whether to relist in the US
Swen Lorenz / Undervalued-Shares: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

In November 2025 Priority Technology's (PRTH, disclosure: long) chairman and CEO offered to take the company private at $6.00 to $6.15 a share, two days after a bad print knocked the stock from seven to five. Zack Buckley wrote a public letter opposing it. His sum of the parts gets to roughly $17 a share, a simpler multiple analysis gets to $19, and the June sale of a comparable payments business at 8.3x EBITDA implies $12 against a stock trading around $5.50. Ten months later the special committee still has not said a word.
Zack walks through why the consolidated company is misread: over 90% of revenue is recurring or reoccurring, and 60% of it sits in Treasury Solutions, an 80%-plus EBITDA margin business built on the Finxera acquisition and CFTPay that has tripled EBITDA in four years. I push back on the payments-pocalypse, on the leverage, and on a Q2 that came in at the high end of the revenue guide and the low end of the EBITDA guide. Then we get to the part I actually care about: the 13D that says the chairman will not sell to a third party, the January 2025 secondary priced at $7.75 that the company said undervalued it, the $3 million of special committee legal costs added back in one quarter, and three straight earnings calls where nobody on the company side would say the word "process." I own the stock, so weigh all of it accordingly.
Buckley Capital's public statement on the proposal: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/buckley-capital-advisors-issues-statement-regarding-controlling-shareholders-take-private-proposal-for-priority-technology-holdings-inc-302620153.html
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com. Two buy-siders hop on a completely anonymized call and discuss a stock they both actually own, or sometimes one is long and the other is skeptical. If you like this podcast, you will like Trata.
Chapters:
(0:00) Introduction and disclaimer
(1:22) Sponsor: Trata
(2:26) Welcome, and why I own this one
(3:19) What Priority Technology is and why Zack thinks it is mispriced
(4:50) The three segments, and why Treasury is the whole story
(7:39) Finxera, CFTPay, and the enterprise distribution model
(9:29) The payments-pocalypse: is this a melting ice cube?
(12:01) The Q2 print, the guide, and the accounting complexity
(14:14) Leverage and the balance sheet
(15:21) November 2025: the chairman bids $6.00 to $6.15
(17:31) A bad print, an illiquid stock, and a bid two days later
(19:23) Ten months in: what takes a process this long?
(21:37) The 13D that rules out a third party
(23:06) The January 2025 secondary at $7.75
(25:47) What dragged-out processes usually mean
(28:03) Would a strategic pay up?
(29:59) Three earnings calls and not one word on the process
(32:00) How the earnings decks changed after the bid
(35:31) Tuck-in M&A, cash building, and the standalone case
(36:58) What a fair number actually looks like
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Tiendas 3B has more than 3,700 stores in central Mexico, opens roughly 150 more every quarter, and earns its money back on a new store in about two years. It is the Aldi model, built by a founder who saw BIM work in Turkey, moved to a country where he did not speak the language, and has spent 21 years compounding it. Alberto Vadia of Fruit Tree Capital thinks it is a hundred bagger from here.
My problem is the price. The stock is approaching $50, it has run a ton, and the bulls I was reading a few months ago were underwriting it in the mid 30s. So I push Alberto on the thing that actually decides this: do the unit economics survive the move from 3,500 stores to 15,000, or does a two year payback quietly become a four year payback once they leave central Mexico? We also get into the two equity offerings from a business that self funds every store it opens, why every other hard discounter on earth stayed private, what Costco at 40 times earnings implies for a Mexican retailer, and whether adding fruits and vegetables is an expansion or a risk.
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com/tbbb. Trata is two buysiders who own the stock talking about what they are actually worried about. They have two calls on TBBB that I used to prep for this one, and you can hear a sample at the link.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro
(01:48) Sponsor: Trata
(02:50) Alberto Vadia, Fruit Tree Capital
(04:22) What is Tiendas 3B, and the Aldi playbook
(07:27) Why they own it: no debt, management, compounding
(08:45) What is the market missing?
(12:09) The chicken and egg problem in hard discount
(13:25) Private label, 900 SKUs, and beating Walmart on ibuprofen
(16:55) The stock has run: have we missed it?
(18:52) Why every other hard discounter stayed private
(21:12) Costco at 40x, and the Mexico haircut
(26:43) Do the unit economics survive stores 5,000 to 15,000?
(28:43) The self splitting distribution center model
(31:46) The equity offerings, and who was actually selling
(36:49) No loss leaders, and the missing fruits and vegetables
(41:58) Why is a Mexican category killer listed in New York?
(45:36) The bare bones deck and the HQ visit
(46:50) Long term, volatility, customer first
Alberto Vadia / Fruit Tree Capital: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertovadia/
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Limbach spent three years turning itself from a general contractor into an owner direct services business, and the market loved it right up until this summer. Then organic revenue went down mid single digits, EBITDA fell 30%, guidance came down from $90m to $80m, and the stock lost half its value. Yaron Naymark of 1 Main Capital pitched me this name in June 2023, watched it 6.5x, sold most of it, and is back buying it after a 75% drawdown.
His argument is that the EBITDA decline is fixed cost deleverage on a demand air pocket, not a broken business, and that the bigger story is the one Limbach missed. While FIX and EME compounded on data centers, Limbach stayed singularly focused on owner direct work and ended up with effectively zero data center exposure. The CYMCOR acquisition announced alongside Q2 is the first real move to fix that. I push back on the bear case that management knowingly bid a pile of low margin work, on whether owner direct is just general contracting by another name, on whether wage inflation from the data center boom is quietly eating them, and on whether a 2016 de-SPAC ever escapes the gravity of $10 per share. We finish on how Yaron invests around AI without pretending to know who wins: Limbach, IWG, and why he re-initiated KKR.
Yaron's first Limbach pitch, June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7GzW0ahswg
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com/lmb. If you like this podcast, you are going to love Trata. It is two buysiders getting on the phone and talking through a stock they are both interested in, the reasons they want to get long, the reasons they are worried about it. They have a Limbach call from six months ago that holds up really well, and I asked one of its questions on this episode.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro
(00:56) Sponsor: Trata
(01:50) Yaron Naymark, back for round six
(03:09) What Limbach is and why he is double dipping
(03:40) Enron, a SPAC, and the shift from general contracting to owner direct
(06:32) Called a data center winner when management said otherwise
(07:48) The air pocket: tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and paused projects
(09:29) Why the stock is down 50% when EBITDA is down 30%
(12:14) Organic versus headline revenue and the Pioneer Power deal
(12:40) Double dipping on a stock you already made money on
(16:57) The bear case: low margin bookings and general contracting by another name
(22:31) Why FIX and EME ran and Limbach did not
(24:42) Wage inflation, technicians, and whether owner direct contracts trap them
(27:01) Did management get caught off guard between Q1 and Q2?
(30:35) The $50m buyback nobody has touched
(31:18) Why M&A beats buying back stock at six times EBITDA
(33:55) The math behind a $200 three year price target
(35:18) Could Limbach be the seller instead of the buyer?
(38:09) Josh Horowitz, insider ownership, and the de-SPAC stigma
(40:50) CYMCOR and the data center pull through
(42:52) Investing around AI: Limbach, IWG, KKR, and the mega-alts
(50:29) Wrap
Yaron Naymark / 1 Main Capital: https://www.1maincapital.com
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer